Father's Day, Around the World

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for one of our favorite cat dads, our super producer, mister Max Williams.

Oh, yeah, you know what I like.

I like boots and cats, boots and cats and boots. And that's how you approximate a techno beat.

With words, Can you do it?

That's Nold Brown and your Bembola and you go boots and cats and boots and cats. And you know, I think it's actually I got that that. I learned that from Siria. I want to say, I can't remember I came up somehow, but yeah, yeah, for sure, Cat dads, dad, dad's daddies, zaddies and daddies.

We're here for all of you.

Yeah, and I am I am called Ben Bollen in this part of the country dealing with dealing with some dad issues ourselves at this moment, we wanted to take a special excursion here on Ridiculous History in celebration of Father's Day. Noel, Max, We've all talked in the past about the importance of Father's Day. Always relationships with one's parents can be complicated. Right, the course of true love never did run smooth.

I don't know what you're.

Talking about, right, right, right, right right, And we want to first off, thank everybody who has a father or is a father themselves in the crowd.

And I'd like to take a moment, Noel, not to put you on the spot too hard, to let you know that you're you're doing a kick ass job as a dad man.

Aw, thanks buddy, I appreciate that, and you know, all my career, Hey, thanks pal. And while my father has has moved on beyond this mortal coil, I do like to think of him as a Mufasa in the cloud situation sometimes and do try to still honor him on Father's Day, which is of course a highly commercial holiday. Let's not get it twisted, but I think it's kind

I think you got some in your back pocket, Ben, But.

Yeah, this is this is what we're gonna do on today's episode of Ridiculous Father's Day History, right.

Right, Father's Day History.

Please do check out our earlier episode. We're gonna republish this as a classic uh this weekend. You can find it as the origins of and backlash against Father's Day, wherein we dive deep into the history of this relatively whole marketing celebration.

It's all Markeian for sure, but you know it's like, I mean, we're gonna get into it, but in Germany it's just called Man's Day.

Yeah, yeah, let's do it right now.

Sounds like it should just be a day of the week. Why not.

There's a really cool article on the Rosetta Stone Blogs.

You'll Remembermber Rosetta Stone.

I do.

I was actually an intense subscriber and also side note, folks, I did walk away from Duo Lingo with the not good quote AI stuff, but was like Pimslers back in the day.

Rosetta Stone was also I just remember the big yellow boxes. And also it like I don't know, it had like it was giving Mayvis Beacon kind of vibes.

You know.

It was like a golden age for tutorial software, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, but big backlash against duo lingo.

You're right.

My kid actually told me about that, and I'm a little on the fence about it because it is sort of like a procedural thing that I could see parts of it being a reasonable use of AI.

But anything anything.

That removes the human element entirely from a thing that was founded on the human element, I do.

It is a sticky It's a sticky situation, and the jimmy's a little little bit a little bit of a little bit of the jimmy. So it's a So look, if you want to buy your father or the fathers in your life some kind of gift or recognition, our primary thesis here is that one doesn't need to wait for Father's Day. It is not a international agreed holiday. It's something that happens in different days, right, different parts

Is for actually be men are now if it's an o. It's an a umlaut. That would be men are men are talk literally like men?

Or day do it?

Do it one more time?

Men are talk? There we go aka ascension day.

Forty days after Easter?

What is that?

That's when then the Lord God ascended into heaven. Look, we're not calendar doctors called the sension day.

So look the point is that's what happened. Okay, cool, thank you back for the facts.

Yep, that seeking in the phone gets back and he's falling knowledge just for you right now here. Well, you're MAX with the facts.

Forty days after Easter. It's indeed, Young Thorn Jesus, a young JC.

Rolled a side stone in the I'm fairly stern on that one.

Was it that way?

I'm not an expert on the tape. You don't have to be. In fact. The second time, Oh, that's seeking.

The phone gets back and he's falling knowledge just for your right now here, talking with the facts.

It's still MAX with the facts. I think the factoids. Did I use factoids right?

One time?

Yeah?

The fact is that a third MAX with the facts right here.

Oh that's the phone gets back and he's falling knowledge just for your right now here.

Talking back with the facts.

No, no, no, this.

The troll if anything.

Right.

So, a factoid is something that appears.

Be accurate and is not, and is often misused as like a micro fact because it sounds like it would be that, and I'm a little resentful And it's not because I do think a factoid sounds like a cute, little bite sized fact.

It is not.

I'm still learning English like Peru's non Peru right.

Perus means both to scrutinize and to skim uh. It is a counter factual. It's a paradoxical word.

Anyway, wouldn't it be fun to try to learn English on an app like just see how they teach it to others?

I would. I think that could be educational. I think it could be educational.

Yeah, I've got to give you next time we all hang out, I've got to give you, guys, my collection of foreign publications as travel guides to the United States. They are amazing, and they're pretty snarky. The German one is one of my favorites anyway. Germany, the way they do Men's Day forty days after Easter. It's not really about your family hanging out with you as a father. What it is more so is a bunch of dads get together and they go on a hike.

They have bro.

Hangs and they fun. Well, you know, they're Germans. There's a lot of beer on it. But apparently it goes back to the Middle Ages in Central and Western Europe, when guys were pulled via carts, which were you know, like a big deal at the time. Wagon situation right to the center of the village. It's like a little parade and everybody is celebrating them.

And isn't there beer in the wagons as well? In the traditional version of.

Yeah then and now And if you are the guy in the village with the most children, most legitimate children by the way, uh, then respreader, Yeah you get a prize. Okay, cool, it is a small child.

You get another child?

Yeah, it's beer, is what it is? Now? I could, I don't know what it is. It's a ham. Oh you get a ham.

That's kind of like a small child. A small child and a ham way about the same.

These are Noel Brown facts.

Facts dare say.

Uh. And apparently the amount of alcohol consumption uh is up there with the Big Binge drinking festival over there Octoberfest. But I will say, as a bit of a as one who was once a small Drummond boy and a bit of a Germanophile, been spending some time in Berlin these last few years.

Drinking culture there is not unhinged at all.

Like they let young people drink uh and and you can there's really no age restrictions for going into bars or places that serve exclude of the alcohol because there's a certain measured approach to drinking that I've seen, and everywhere I go, whatever the event is, it doesn't seem like it's an unhinged, boozy kind of country.

No, no, it's not. It's not Bourbon Street by any means. Right, you will see people from old demographics sipping like a pilsner or a logger at lunch, and it's just like the way you might have a soda, you know.

They're like they used to drink it back in the Middle Ages as it because everything else would have been feted.

Yeah that's the right word, bad water, right, yeah, yeah, unclean.

We we know.

Also, we're we're all big fans of Germany as a country.

Currently they're also currently apparently in mega doomsday prep mode. We talked about that on our recent Strange News episode of Stuff they Don't Want You to know, And I believe I made the observation that the Germans are nothing if not uh fastidious and prepared.

Yes, they are the atlas upon which NATO must stand.

Uh.

We also know that there are other Father's Day celebrations throughout the world.

Japan.

Oh, oh, Japan, you want to do Japan?

I don't know, man, that is if i'm if I'm a Germanophile. I think you're a Japanophile.

Do you mean a wiya boo?

Yes, I am a consummate tourist. Perhaps that's what we tell customs and Passport Control.

Yeah, Japan with.

A Costco card, thought it right.

They won't even let my tote and chip slide. Uh.

That's a joke for the few boy scouts in the crowd, all right. Japan has a thing on the third Sunday in June, so much more predictable than that weird ascension day, and still in June, and still in June.

Great point. It is called Chee chee no height.

Uh. This is where you will give a father in your life some flowers, some fancy food, some sweet desserts. Maybe some sake. And of course still they get clothing, ties, socks, they might get some sports items, calf cologne, perhaps cologne, yes, yes, what did you say, Ben? Cologne is meant to be discovered, not an ounce, not announced. I love that I've become a bit of a cologne guy myself lately.

And Ben, I do love here the non gender treatment of flowers. It just seems like we think of it over here in the West. It's like something you give a lady or like to your date or to your mother. And I think flowers are for everybody. As someone who absolutely loves fresh cut.

Flowers, that's interesting observation. Yeah, I feel like it's a decent housewarming present, right, because it's not you know, housewarmings in the US version are so fundamentally strange. It's like, Hey, you just moved to a new place. You had to move all your other possessions. Let me give you some stuff.

Do you realize how much stuff you have?

So let me give you another thing? Right, So, flowers being ephemeral are pretty cool. I gotta say, you know, there's this there's this drive I think in the in the human nature to acknowledge those folks who made your life possible, and that's why we see it. We see celebrations like Father's Day in Italy and the Philippines and India and France. Do you want to stick with Europe first?

Gotta gotta do the Italy one, just because it's so fun to say. It is, which is celebrated on a religious holiday, Saint Joseph's Feast day, and this is not in June. This is March, March to nineteenth. So in this tradition we have young school children who actually write poems about their father, and it really hits home and emphasizes the idea of creating things like crafts and cards and drawings, which to me, I think are the ultimate gift.

I appreciate.

I think homemade gifts are much better because really they are an exhibition of time and affection, and time and affection are the only true currencies of the world. We also got to shout out Saint Joseph, by the way. The reason it's all in Saint Joseph's Day in Italy is because Saint Joseph is, yes, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the legal, if not biological father of Jesus Christ. So he's he's like the main earth dad,

Exactly.

But Beto, now sorry, I think those close family style Italian dining is the best. And there's some really great spots. There's a whole little Italian kind of compound here in Atlanta near Georgia Tech where they have Anticho Pizza and which is really good Neapolitan style pizza.

And then they also in that same you know compound thing have.

A really good uh gelato place and an excellent family style byo b Roasted chicken place forgetting the name.

Of now, but boy is it good.

You can get like a like a spicy kind of blood orange infused roasted chicken.

So I love that stuff. Let's also, you know what, while we're talking about Italy, the you know, the foundational place of Catholicism. Currently, let's stay Catholic. No, let's go to the Philippines.

But really quickly, Ben, I just do want to point out that this family style meal might not be a roasted chicken or a giant a pile of meatballs seafood because they would well yeah, yeah for sure, or potentially meatless because they it happens during length during the Italian season, happens during length, so potentially.

Doesn't count as meat though, that is true.

Yeah, pescatarian, but you're right, that doesn't count.

Them's the rules. So yeah, sorry, Ben, Let's go to the Philippines, like you.

Were saying, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Philippines strong Catholic culture. Father's Day is a big deal holiday there. It was introduced not through the Spanish occupation, but through American culture, US culture, and it is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. It's very food based, and I got to tell you, if you've ever had the chance, or if you ever have the chance to meet a lola in someone who can cook Filipino food, you need to do your best to get on their good side and get invited to that cookout. You'll get

Now they're so good, they're a little tighter wrapped. In my hometown, Augusta, Georgia, they have like a big arts festival every year and they have like the different nationality food stands in the Filipino booth always a hot ticket because they make some excellent food. I believe the cari kari, which is like a peanut based stew. Any of those little glass noodle kind of situations are really great. And Lashan you mentioned being like a barbecue pork that would

Dog exactly second Sunday in November.

Right, this is uh.

Oh, we're moving farther and farther away from June.

You know what people are gonna people.

This is again a situation where you see the father's being celebrated. Starts around the turn of the twentieth century, so early nineteen hundred's fathers get cakes and they get they get books that they may or may not read. No shade and they get ties. And the thing is, Sweden culturally leans into the idea of getting the same gift over and over.

So if it's a humor of the Swedes.

Yeah yeah, yeah, very dry sense of humor. You could tell by their cuisine. I said, it don't cut it. So the idea is that as you grow as a patter familius, you get ties every year, and you get more and more ties as you age.

Yeah, so many ties.

That necessitates an entire rack, you know, and perhaps an electric ty rack, you know, where you can kind of like the library of ties.

You know, remember the electric tyracts? People still have those?

Is that a real thing? Absolutely?

That would have been a hugely popular Father's Day gift back in the day. It's like a Sharper image type thing. Okay, see electric tie rack. It's sort of like a conveyor belt of ties and they hang down and go around in a sort of a ellipse, an elliptical orbit, the electric diract. It reminds me of an episode of Mister

One of them was electric tyrack. It's so nice move that ties from side to side.

I like that.

I like the best parton that goes electric tyract baby it loves it, or racking up electric ties, which doesn't make any sense because the ties a lot electric.

I heard it. There's some bars there. We also know that the third Sunday of June is when Costa Rica celebrates Father's Day, and they did so by adopting the US custom in there again to the importance and I think we're all agreed here. Handmade gifts are better than stuff you buy, so children in Costa Rica will make gifts for their dads. And again you gotta have the big family meal, so you get your gayo pento, you

Uh.

The kids will do like a song, dance or a Quick Conner show.

I love it.

Yeah.

Is there a theme around it is just something related to the honoring of the final man.

Have you ever been to like children's theatrical performance?

Depending well, as you've been interview, I know that for sure.

But in Germany.

I do remember puppets were huge puppet theater for kids, and marionettes.

And stuff were really really big, So I do remember that.

And of course I've participated in like, you know, church camp kind of things.

So a brief tangent about my own patter familias many years ago. Colonel, you know, the colonel they call him not Kurt's hashtag, no Kurtz, I hope, but I don't know too much about him. Uh he uh. He decided to uh do ride share stuff for a few years, and he was absolutely terrible at it because he wasn't in a hurry and he.

Ordered to chat.

Yeah, he just wanted to hang out.

And so I've had I've gotten a few of those as the uber driver from time to time.

It's definitely a type, right, Yeah, it's doing it for different reasons that doing it for the gig economy.

So here's the story.

Yeah, he clearly didn't need the money or the mission, but he met someone who was in a hurry to see her grand nieces recital like a child, right, and they were doing skits and they were doing a little dancing or whatever, and this absolute legend says, yeah, okay, I'll go with you because the lady is worried you shall have to go alone. So he just shows up and uh, without getting any too many specifics here or

Of course he is. He is an abooliant fellow. I love that story.

Ben.

I did recently go to like an elementary school pageant type play where all of the kids were different barnyard animals.

And boy was it cute, and boy was the sound horrible.

What was your favorite animal?

Well, of course my other child, uh, not really directly, but my kid's baby Sis, who was basically frontons and purposes. My other kid was a was a pig. And the joke in the song was that the pigs were really neat and tidy. They were really tidy, fastidious pigs, fastidious brilliance. You're killing it today.

Like the Germans.

Your welcome bucker root.

If you are familiar with the diaspora of South Asia and the Indian subcontinent, then you will probably recognize this. The third Sunday in June is Father's Day in many major cities of India. Now India is huge. India's culture is ancient. This is again an adaptation of the concept of Father's Day as originating in the United States. Again, if you're the dad in an Indian family, you'll get

Oh especially yeah, of course during war time, no question about it. And can I just say that the chuckle that you heard from Ben was my actual child walking past behind me and then me giving them the finger, because that's just how we roll. It was a good natured finger.

I saw you both smiling.

There was definitely smiling for sure. Nah, love that kid, and I expect an epic gift.

Speaking of which Ben, in this Rosetta Stone blog piece that we are not shilling for Rosetta Stone, it ends with a way of saying Happy Father's Day and tons of different different languages which we are totally not going to do, lest we humiliate ourselves and butcher the language

Back pocket too, So which orders shall we take it in?

You know what?

No hop in the driver's seat for this one. I'm very interested in hearing your ideas because I'd also love a little bit of your council.

Well, it's not my counsel, Ben, I'm referring to a BuzzFeed list to call it.

All right, thank you, Nola.

I will say, though there's something on here this is particular to our topic at hand or the genre of the show.

It's fourteen Father's Day Gifts every history bus.

Dad secretly once and it just gave me some ideas because I do remember, you know, my dad really did love like history. So you might consider this book eighteen sixty one, The Lost Piece by Jay Winnick about the Civil War. It is apparently a delights and a very well written book and a New York Times bestseller, as it turns out, one that I love from this list though that I have thought about before, that kind of falls squarely in that dad gift kind of thing, but

Ah, Yes, the fancy fountain.

Pen, one that you can get little nubbins for like it just you know, you don't. It's not disposable. It's like one that you would It's like a nice thing that you would cherish and remember who gave it to you.

A rolex of pens, rightly, perhaps.

You definitely could go that route. And I don't know if you're in on the world of luxury pens, but it is a pretty broad spectrum of like how much you want to pay. You could get one super nice that they've recommended hereby Scrivnier, a London company, for about forty five bucks.

Scrivener's on the low end, by the way, That's exactly it would seem so.

But it does look very nice. And I have a fountain pen that takes these little cartridges that I quite enjoyed, and as well, how do you feel about custom mugs? Ben Custom Mugs True.

Story one of my absolute legendary cousins told my one of my many shady uncles, told him that he was going to be a grandfather. On Father's Day, she got him a mug that said best granddad ever. And then she said, we are not taking questions because my family is very strange.

Everybody all got him.

Then we've all got the odd balls, and then everybody's doing strange. Excuse me, Well, we'll keep that back. Everybody's doing well, including uncle Fireworks. I still don't know what that guy does.

Who are we talking about?

My uncle, my shady uncle who found out that he was a grandfather.

That is his nickname. Yeah, fireworks.

See a bit of a pyromaniac as he likes to do fireworks.

I mean that'd be a simple guest right there.

Well, he told me that he is involved with fireworks in China.

I had an uncle, but he was more into firewater.

Fire water, I see.

And then I had one more just to honor our pal, aj Bahamas Jacobs, the puzzler and something that we talk about both on this show and our sister podcast. Stuff they don't want you to know. It's a real catch all for all of these things. There is a five hundred piece puzzle of banned books.

Oh that's beautiful. Yeah, shout out to our buddy Roy Wood Junior. By the way, guy loves puzzles. That's the only thing I talked with him about. You do you like getting a puzzle as a gift.

It feels a bit like getting a homework assignment. It's not my favorite, but I do think there are people out there that love it. And this one features sixty five different books that have at one point or another been banned, including a lot of, as the BuzzFeed listical points out, historically underrepresented authors. How many pieces in the puzzle five hundred? Oh, so that's actually a pretty respectable number.

Okay?

Got it? Interesting?

Well, I think this is a little something for all the history buff and puzzlers.

Nice, nice, well, Noel brought it back now before we uh, before we wrap up and go to our various celebrations.

Max, you had something to add.

Here, of course, because you know, while ridiculous royal deaths might be over, we can still talk about them some. And I was just kind of digging around because when we're doing this topic, for some reason, my brain went instantly to John the baby.

Maker and Yoko.

Forget John classic, who else.

Has had a lot of children? And this one I think is pretty hilarious. But Henry One had twenty seven children. So who Henry One was is? He was King of England eleven hundred to eleven thirty five.

He was one.

I think he was the third son of William the Conqueror, And if you remember, William Conqueror's eldest son was at constant war with him, like literally they were trying to kill each other across the first Channel. The second son went out hunting and got shot with an arrow and then.

Huh in the knee, not the knee.

But also you know that's actually just reality. This Tyan references say getting married exactly, it's like a shot on the knee, That's what that's what it actually means, Like yeah, yeah, I found that one out like not that long. I'm like, oh, okay, that makes sense. But uh now the William Rufus, the first one he became king, he got shot with an arrow and his brother was like already halfway there back to the castle by the time he got shot with

Yeah.

This guy, by the way, he had twenty seven children. Twenty seven children, almost all them illegitimate, and he's the one who died from eating lampreys.

All right, so get that man a Ham.

Celebrate the village right, Once you've had a lampreys, you can't go back to Ham. Sorry, Ham doesn't wriggle around in your gutties.

Hilarious.

It's like from all the stories, like it was so obvious that he was a lurser to them, and everyone's also like they're also really disgusting. This guy just loves them in your opinion, right, no, no, in their opinion.

Might I've never had a lamprey?

And folks with that, please please please remember that everyone is imperfect right and the Again, as we said at the top, the course of true love never does run smooth. If you are lucky enough to be able to contact your father or your mother for that matter, then please do so. You don't have to wait for a specific day. It happens all the time all around the world.

And can I just make a quick Morrissey ref friends Steven though that guy's dead to us. The Smiths are not Johnny mar Rules. They have a song called please Please Please let me get what I want, and I would add for Father's.

Day and again yes, well said, and again you know. The thing I want to hit here is that you don't need a specific day. The fact that Hollmark has commercialized specific times to celebrate a thing does not make that celebration itself inherently invalid. We are so glad that

Oh Man aj Bahamas Jacobs.

That guy.

He's a great dad.

By the way, He's just such a minch, you know.

I apparently we're going to be seeing a little more of him since his son just got into Emory, as he mentioned last on this show.

And I think there I saw Instagram post. I think the cowboy hats.

Of course, I pitched him an idea, uh for you can find Aj on Instagram.

You can find uh most of us there.

I pitched an idea for his next book, The Year of Living Cowboy. We'll see if it uh, we'll see where he goes with it. Also again uh, requisite contractually obligated shout out to Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist.

Mm hmmm.

Yeah, he's a he's a dog dad tibble. He's got a little Doug of course, named after a Shakespearean of course. Of course, we also mentioned the Jonathan Strickland's father wrote the Wishbone series for kids. I think that's great and also it was a pretty well regarded fantasy and science fiction writer. So happy Father's Day to Brad Strickland, right right, not Jonathan Jonathan. If you're hearing this, we're shouting out your father, not Jonathan's.

No one's father.

Jesus right God.

I hope it's very clear that we really like Jonathan's.

Yeah.

We actually is the best.

Yeah, we we text each other pretty often. Actually, A big shout out, of course to the rude dudes of Ridiculous Crime, to Alex Williams who composed this slap and bop, big big shout out to you know, not just the fathers, but all the kids in the audience.

And big shout out to the colonel and to you Ben. We'll see you next time, folks.

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